Petersfield Heath

Barrow / Cairn Cemetery

Petersfield Heath (Barrow / Cairn Cemetery) on The Modern Antiquarian, the UK & Ireland's most popular megalithic community website. 1 news item, 33 images, 3 fieldnotes, plus information on many more ancient sites nearby and across the UK & Ireland.

News

Archaeologists to begin excavating early Bronze Age cemetery in Hampshire

A four-year campaign to dig a 21-barrow set of graves, declared as a set of Scheduled Ancient Monuments and aligned in a style linked to Stonehenge, has begun at one of Britain's largest and most intriguing mixed cemeteries... continues...

Images (click to view fullsize)

Fieldnotes

This is a super fab place to visit!
If you are ever in the vicinity of Petersfield (an attractive market town in its own right) make sure you visit the Heath and its many Barrows.

We arrived at Petersfield Heath and it was snowing hard – bit fluffy flakes.
The ducks didn’t seem too impressed – first time I have seen snow on a duck’s head!

We parked in the large car park and I did a circular walk to take in the Barrows around the lake. A handy free information leaflet issued by the ‘Friends of Petersfield Heath’ was available from one of those clear plastic boxes.
This gave a history of the heath (reporting 21 Barrows) and a handy map showing where the Barrows could be found.

Finding the Barrows turned out to be no trouble at all as most were large and hard to miss. Most were in very good condition with little sign of damage.
They ranged in height from about 1m to 3m and in diameter from about 3m to 15m.
Some were grass covered whilst others were covered by trees and bushes etc.
The only Barrow I saw which had clearly been dug into was the largest one near the lake. This Barrow unfortunately also had signs of fires being lit upon it – but this was certainly the exception to the Barrows sited here.

On a nice summers day this would be a cracking place for a picnic and to feed the ducks. Today it was also a great day to visit with the snow falling heavily.
There is something ‘special’ about visiting a site in the snow – must be the old romantic in me!

Before long I had to head back to the car and we drove past the Barrows nearest the cricket pitch. These again were very easy to spot and looked to be even larger than the ones around the lake. Unfortunately I didn’t have time for a closer look.

All in all, this is a great place to visit and one I would heartily recommend.
If I ever get the chance I will most certainly come back again – in particular to get a closer look at the Barrows near the cricket pitch.

Due to one of life's quirky little detours I found myself in Petersfield today visiting family of a friend. A lovely afternoon so we walked around Petersfield Heath which, is spite of having a prosperous market town right next to it, still feels like a heath. Surprisingly there are several round barrows dotted about, some hidden among the trees. Not much to add to Jimit's fieldnote except to say that the person showing us the barrows also told us that they were aligned to the midwinter sunset between the gap in the two westerly hills which can be seen from the nearby lake (formerly marshland). One of these, Butser Hill, being the highest hill in South Downs. It would be difficult to test this theory now as there the area is quite wooded - a treat though to have a little bit of prehistory come my way without any real effort on my behalf.

This is really quite a delightful site. Very close to the centre of the bustling market town of Petersfield, an area of sandy heath with a large lake. No better place to play the game of "Spot the barrow" as some stand proud, dominated by noble trees, others lurk shyly in light woodland and some seem to stand guard over the boundary of the little cricket pitch. One or two are difficult to distinguish as there are a few natural tiny hills in the area. To the SW,the dominant Butser Hill. A charming place to exercise the dogs/children, to do a bit of fishing and to search for a distant past.

Disabled: Excellent. Dedicated parking and flat access to the Millennium Walk which encircles the lake. Short cropped grass walks traverse the site with very gentle gradients.